The Sour of Monte Pisco

24 Friday May 2013

Posted by in Cocktails

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

sour of monte pisco

I’ve been travelling a lot lately, and to make the best of it I try to visit good cocktail bars. And when I visit a good cocktail bar, I have a couple of cocktails – you know, just to be sure I’m getting into the feel of the bar. In the name of research and all that. I decide on my favourite cocktail, then… then, I play the Canberra card.

“So, do you think you would mind showing me how to make that?” <careful pause> “because I’m from Canberra, and there aren’t any good cocktail bars in Canberra.”*

Which is how I got this recipe for a damn near perfect autumn cocktail from the lovely bartender at Go Go Bar in Melbourne. Actually, it is perfect and we’ve been drinking them every week since I’ve been back from Melbourne. And in case you were wondering, yes I do think it is better than the traditional pisco sour.

The Sour of Monte Pisco

30ml Amaro Montegro
30ml Pisco Control
20-25ml sugar syrup (pref cinnamon infused)
30ml fresh lemon juice
dash of bitters
½ egg white
ground cinnamon, for garnish

  1. Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously; you want the egg white to froth up.
  2. Add ice to the shaker and shake again, to chill.
  3. Pour into a glass (with the ice) and here’s where it gets fancy – if you have a blow torch, turn it on full blast and position it just over the glass, then sprinkle a dusting of ground cinnamon through the flame. This quickly toasts the spice so that you get the smell of cinnamon every time you take a sip. Don’t worry if you don’t have one though, just dust with ground cinnamon.

*this is a factually true statement

Lentil, Red Pepper and Cumin Soup

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in Comfort food, Dinner, Packed Lunches, Quick, Winter

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

lentil soup

I am dreading the cold weather, but there’s something to be said for the therapeutic qualities of winter food. There’s the time-efficiency of the chop it up and chuck it in a pot methodology, and of course, the comforting smell of impending deliciousness wafting through the house.

This soup is a great all-rounder – serve it as an entree, take it as a packed lunch or make it a gourmet dinner with some good bread and a splash of good-quality infused olive oil. There’s only one thing to to know, and that is sweating vegetables to make a good base for a soup takes longer than you think.

There’s a big difference between sweating and frying an onion. For a good soup base, what you are looking for is a gently cooked onion – cooked for a while over low heat and enough oil to prevent sticking. It should be soft enough to disintegrate when pressed and sweet and mellow in flavour. In the recipe below, you cook the vegetables for 10 minutes, but I should point out that 15 minutes is better.

Simmering a soup for hours doesn’t necessarily make it better, so don’t cook this for longer than necessary. Enjoy!

Lentil, red pepper and cumin soup
from Skye Gyngell’s ‘A year in my kitchen’
serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, finely diced
1 leek, washed and cut into a quarters, then thinly sliced
2 celery sticks, diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
2 red peppers (capsicum), halved, deseeded and diced
3 garlic cloves, finely diced
1 tsp ground cumin
2 bay leaves
3 sprigs thyme
200 Puy lentils
1.5 litres vegetable stock

salt and pepper, to serve
coriander or parsley, for garnish

  1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the onion, leek, celery and carrots and sweat gently for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
  2. Add the diced capsicum, garlic, cumin, bay leaves and thyme and continue to sweat for another 10 minutes. The onions, leek and celery should now be translucent.
  3. Add the lentils, pour in the stock and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low and cook, uncovered for 20 minutes or until the lentils are tender.
  4. Discard the herbs and taste for seasoning.
  5. Serve with chopped parsley or coriander and a drizzle or olive oil.

Boeuf Bourguignon

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Comfort food, Dinner, Winter

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , ,

boeuf bourguignon

It’s somewhat of a tradition here in Canberra, and an unspoken convention that heaters are not to be turned on before Anzac Day. I’m not sure how many people stick to this rule really, as it got down to 0°C a few nights before, but so compelling is this unspoken rule (and the pressure to fit into Canberran society) that even if you do turn on your heater, you’d be hard pressed to admit it. After all, you wouldn’t want your friends to think of you as un-Canberran, would you?

Just in time for the colder nights, here’s a recipe for boeuf bourguignon, a Burnett speciality tweaked with reference to Francois at FXcuisine.

Once considered a peasant dish, it’s now comfort food at it’s finest – after all, it’s hard to argue with beef slow cooked in red wine. Pop it on the stove on a lazy Sunday afternoon, it makes for good leftovers as long as it’s not frozen.

Boeuf Bourguignon
serves 6-8

1.5kg beef – chuck or blade steak
2 large white onions, diced
1 carrot, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
bouquet garni – bay leaf, parsley, sage, thyme
1 bottle red wine, yes the whole bottle – and, if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it*

500ml beef stock
1 tbsp tomato paste
100g speck, cut into 3mm pieces
200g small button mushrooms
12 pickling onions, peeled

2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

green beans
rice, baby potatoes or mashed potato to serve

  1. Dice your beef into large, approx 3cm cubes. Alternatively, you can buy already diced beef. Chuck steak is usually more fatty and blade is lean – use whichever you prefer.
  2. Place the beef into a large non-reactive (glass or stainless steel) bowl and add diced onions, carrot, garlic, bouquet garni and all the wine. Leave to marinade overnight.
  3. The next day, remove the beef pieces from the pan (they should’ve turned a darker colour) and pat dry. Don’t take shortcuts here, really pat it dry so that you get the Maillard reaction and that lovely caramelised flavour when you brown the meat in the pan.
  4. Using a heavy based pot and a splash of oil, sear the pieces of meat in small batches making sure to turn them so that they brown evenly on all sides.
  5. Drain the wine and save the bouquet garni and reserve it for later.
  6. On a low heat, sweat the onions, garlic and carrots from the marinade – about 10 minutes.
  7. Add beef back into the pan along with the wine, beef stock, tomato paste and bouquet garni. Cook covered on low heat for 2 hours.
  8. In a separate pan, cook the speck. Using the fat (add extra butter if needed), fry off the pickling onions and mushrooms and pickling onions. Add these to the main pot, making sure they are submerged.
  9. Make a roux to thicken the stew using 2 tbsp butter and flour. Add this to the main pot and stir. Cook for a further 30 minutes, or until the onions are cooked through. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
  10. Serve hot with a side of green beans and your choice of rice or boiled baby potatoes, or if you’re feeling decadent, mashed potatoes.

*good advice from Peter, Nick’s dad and resident wine expert, though I must confess I tend to use on average about a $12 bottle of wine for this.

Anzac biscuits

20 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by in Baking, Cookies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

anzac biscuits
Is it sacrilegious to tweak a biscuit as important to national identity as the Anzac? Probably. So I’m not really sure why I did it. N says it’s easily his favourite biscuit, but it was always much too sweet for me. Overwhelmingly sweet, and it didn’t taste of much else.

I’ve since substituted treacle for golden syrup to give it a slightly bitter undertone, and shredded coconut for dessicated so that it tastes more coconutty and has added texture.

Update: further research (and a tip off from a friend) has led me to a recipe from the Department of Veteran’s Affairs which suggests treacle is A-OK! You’ll find their recipe here. Interestingly enough, culinary historian Allie Reynolds says that modern-day Anzac biscuits bear little resemblance to the sturdy, long-lasting biscuits which were shipped to Diggers.

These Anzac biscuits are crunchy on the outer edges and chewy in the middle. If that’s your preference, bake them to colour as shown in the picture above, if you prefer yours crunchy throughout, which is probably how they were eaten back in the day, to reduce spoilage, bake them a few minutes longer.

So call it what you will, and despite my research, it may not even qualify as an Anzac biscuit to you without golden syrup, but here’s my version of the Australian (and New Zealand) classic. This is my second batch, I should add, because N felt the need to bribe his work colleagues with cookies with all of the first batch.

Did everyone get a cookie? I asked. No, he said, there weren’t enough cookies to go around. He did admit to eating the first five or so.

“If they want cookies, they have to come to me,” he said, beaming. He’s really getting delirious on his cookie powers.

Anzac biscuits
makes 30

155g butter
2 tbsp (30ml) treacle syrup
150g plain flour
150g white sugar
100g rolled oats
50g shredded coconut
2 tbsp (30ml) boiling water
1½ tsp bicarb soda

  1. Preheat oven to 150C.
  2. Melt butter and treacle in a medium saucepan. 
  3. Combine flour, sugar, rolled oats and coconut in a large mixing bowl and toss with your hands to combine.
  4. In a small cup, add the boiling water to the bicarb soda, and stir to combine. Then quickly tip this mixture into the warm butter mixture – be careful, it will bubble up.
  5. Pour over the dry ingredients and mix well ensuring that all the dry ingredients are coated.
  6. Place tablespoons of the mixture onto lightly greased baking trays, ensuring that you leave lots of room for the biscuits to expand.
  7. Bake for 12 minutes for the perfect crunchy-chewy texture, or closer to 15 for a crunchy Anzac.

Grandma’s Mushroom Dry Curry (Mushroom Peratal)

08 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Asian food, Dinner, Indian, Quick, Vegetarian, Winter

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

mushroom paretal

It’s been a while since my last post, I’ve been back home in Malaysia which means that I’ve been pottering around in Grandma’s kitchen with my camera and notebook and generally getting in her way.

“How much spices did you put in, Gramma?”
“This much,” says Grandma, gesturing with her thumb across her fingers.
“How much is that in teaspoons though?”
“I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head, “I don’t use teaspoons and all that, all my cooking is by hand (feel).” Grandma gets a teaspoon out of the drawer, pours the spices into her hand, then back into the teaspoon. “Ah, half a teaspoon is enough, ” she says, nodding her head.

grandma prepping mushrooms

She’s almost hunched over double now, due to her bad back, yet she insists on cooking everyday. And cleaning. She doesn’t do well with sitting still, my Gramma. She wants to know why I need to take pictures of her for the blog when it’s about the recipe and always grins when she catches me taking pictures of her. This is her recipe for mushroom paretal which we always have as a side to dahl. A paretal (pronounced pare-reh-tel) is a style of curry where the liquid is slowly cooked out, so you end up with an intensely flavoured dry curry.

spice and chilli mix cooking mushroom paretal

Grandma’s Mushroom Dry Curry (Mushroom Peratal)
serves 4-6, as one of many dishes

500g oyster mushrooms
2 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
3 dried red chillies, cut in half lengthwise and seeds removed
¼ tsp fennel seeds
¼ tsp cumin
½ tsp black mustard seeds
¼ tsp fenugreek seeds (optional)
2 small red onions, cut into medium dice
3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
3 slices ginger, cut into 0.5cm dice
1½ tbsp fish curry powder* (Grandma only uses Baba’s brand – it’s available at Indian grocers)
¼ tsp chilli powder
pinch of salt, to taste
¼ tsp vegetable stock powder
10-15 curry leaves (optional)

  1. Tear the oyster mushrooms into smaller pieces of about 1-2cm each, so that when you cook the dry curry you’ll have a good spice to mushroom ratio.
  2. Place the oyster mushrooms in a bowl and pour boiling water over just to cover. Leave for 5 minutes, then drain. I suppose you could skip this part if you wanted, but Grandma says it takes away the earthy mushroom smell.
  3. To cook the curry, heat the oil in a small pan over a medium heat. It’s best to use a nonstick pan as the later steps of making the paretal requires you to cook out the liquid, a process which is tricky in a normal saucepan as the ingredients can catch and burn on the bottom.
  4. Add the red chillies, fennel seeds, cumin, black mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds (if using) and fry for about 10 seconds until you can smell the spices. Don’t fry them for too long – you don’t want the chillies to get too dark.
  5. Add onions, garlic and ginger to the pan all at once. Stir over medium heat until the onions have turned brown at the edges.
  6. Remove from heat and add the fish curry powder and chilli powder – this ensures that the finely ground spices will not burn and turn bitter.
  7. Return the pan to the heat, and add 50ml of water so that the mixture forms into a paste. Add the mushrooms to the pan, along with the salt and vegetable stock powder and stir so the spice mix coats the mushrooms. Add the curry leaves, then lower the heat and cook for a further 3 minutes.
  8. Carefully add another 100ml of water and partially cover the pan with a lid – you want the mushrooms to slowly cook in the spices. Cook over a low heat until the liquid has absorbed and you have a dry curry.*fish curry powder doesn’t have fish in it – it’s just the curry powder mix used specifically to cook fish

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Honeycomb

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Baking, Chocolate, Cupcakes

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

chocolate stout cupcakes

My Scottish friend drinks beer unlike anyone else I have ever seen. He can drink beer quicker than most people can drink water and seems to have an uncanny ability to wear its effects.

So when his birthday was the day after St Patrick’s day, I couldn’t resist making a recipe that combined beer (well stout, specifically) and chocolate. I was after a more dense cake than my usual chocolate cupcake recipe, and while searching for the perfect recipe, stumbled upon the unusual combination of stout and chocolate.

The reviews were great (over 400 of them) but I was skeptical. I dislike even the smell of beer, so I wondered how the cupcakes would turn out and what the stout would lend to the mix. Turns out that I needn’t have worried. These cupcakes were rich, a good level of dense and you couldn’t taste the stout at all – it just lent the cake depth of flavour.

I must admit I totally winged it on the icing, so I will make a mental note to write a proper recipe and post it later. At this point all I can tell you is that I whisked cream cheese until smooth then added a bit of cream, cocoa powder, icing sugar and melted dark chocolate.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes
makes 26 cupcakes
from Epicurious

for the cupcakes
1 cup stout
225g butter
¾ cup cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar (it sounds like a lot, but trust me)
½ tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 eggs
⅔ cup sour cream

for the icing*
*recipe to come

honeycomb
180g sugar 
70g glucose (available at supermarkets)
60ml water
½ tsp bicarb soda

  1. Preheat oven to 170C. 
  2. Heat stout and butter in a saucepan over medium heat until butter is melted. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Allow to cool slightly.
  3. Whisk eggs and sour cream in an electric mixer until smooth.
  4. Add stout-chocolate mixture and mix to combine.
  5. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt to the batter and beat on low speed until just combined.
  6. Using an ice cream scoop, place mixture into cupcake liners and fill until about two thirds full. 
  7. Bake until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 17 minutes.
  8. For the honeycomb, put sugar, glucose and water into a small saucepan and place the pan over high heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture takes on a faint golden tinge – do not go past light golden or  you will have ashy, burnt, honeycomb. Remove pan from the heat and wait for the mixture to cool down for about 20-30 seconds – there should still be small bubbles in the sugar syrup. Add the bicarb all at once, and stir through with a spatula – just enough so that it’s all combined. Spoon out into the prepared lined flat dish, and leave to set for about 45 minutes. Break into pieces, and store in an airtight container. 
  9. To assemble, use a large star tip to pipe icing onto cooled cupcakes, top with honeycomb then drizzle with melted dark chocolate. Honeycomb goes soft when exposed to air, so consume quickly.

 

Honeycomb

17 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by in Baking, Comfort food, Quick

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

honeycomb pieces

Every kitchen should have a recipe for honeycomb – it’s great as an accompaniment to panna cotta, cupcake toppings, on ice cream, or if you’re a minimalist, just on it’s own. Every since I started making it last week, I just can’t get enough of it. And the best part is, it’s a four ingredient kind of recipe

Home made honeycomb beats store bought mostly because it’s got better depth of flavour – unlike chocolate bars which just taste sweet and make my teeth hurt, honeycomb made at home has a slightly bitter undertone which balances the sweetness.

honeycomb

Honeycomb
adapted from Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris’ ‘Your Place or Mine’

180g sugar
70g glucose (available at supermarkets)
60ml water
½ tsp bicarb soda

  1. Line a flat dish with baking paper and set aside.
  2. To make the honeycomb, put sugar, glucose and water into a small saucepan.
  3. Place the pan over high heat until the sugar dissolves. Swirl pan to dissolve sugar. Once sugar has dissolved, wait for the bubbles to slow down and for the mixture to take on a faint golden tinge – do not go past light golden or  you will have ashy, burnt, honeycomb.
  4. Remove pan from the heat and wait for the mixture to cool down for about 20-30 seconds – there should still be small bubbles in the sugar syrup. This is important, if the mixture is too hot, your honeycomb will continue to cook and be burnt in the middle.
  5. Add the bicarb all at once, and stir through with a spatula – just enough so that it’s all combined. Spoon out into the prepared lined flat dish, and leave to set for about 45 minutes.
  6. Break into pieces, and store in an airtight container.

Pulled Pork Tacos

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Comfort food, Dinner, Quick, Summer

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

pulled pork tacos

My poor Fissler has been neglected lately. It’s probably my favourite kitchen appliance just for the fact that it halves your cooking time, but Bowie – as I have named him – from the song Under Pressure has been sitting in the cupboard for most of summer.

I guess I just didn’t think of summer as the time to use the pressure cooker, but really, there’s just as much you can do in summer with one that you could do all year round – for instance jams and preserves. (I’m currently in the testing phase for jam, and will report back soon).

Pulled pork is a great summer recipe and this is a never-fail, use-what’s-on-hand, chuck-it-all-in-a-pot recipe. It’s a great summer recipe – all ready for weekend, outdoor dining. Best part is that you can cook it all up in advance and serve it when your guests arrive.

There’s really only three secrets to kickass tacos to make them taste better than anything you’ve eaten at a restaurant.

One – use real corn tortillas, and I don’t mean the ones you find in a supermarket

Two – pressure cooking is going to retain a lot of flavour in the meat you use as a filling (it’s really better than slow cooking)

Three – use good quality, fresh ingredients – this means tomatoes on the vine for fuller flavour and fresh lime juice (not the bottled stuff)

Pulled Pork Tacos

serves 4-6 20 corn tortillas, available at delis

for the pork
1 kg pork neck (it’s the closest to what American’s call pork butt, or Boston butt)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp ancho chilli powder (or substitute paprika)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp mixed herbs (or whatever you have in your pantry)
1 tsp salt
300ml white wine
300 ml stock, or water and a stock cube
400g can of tomato passata, or tinned tomatoes
1 tbsp liquid smoke (optional, but oh so good if you can can your hands on it!)
Juice of 1 lime, or lemon
freshly ground pepper, to taste

for the sides -
salsa
3 truss tomatoes, cut into small dice
½ capsicum, cut into small dice
1 small red onion, cut into small dice
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lime juice

guacamole
1 avocado, deseeded and mashed with a fork.
½ tomato, cut into fine dice
1 small pip garlic, finely diced
juice of ½ a lime
dash of Tabasco sauce
salt to taste

corn, sour cream, grated cheese to serve (optional)

  1. Cut the pork neck into four pieces and place in the pressure cooker. Add the rest of the ingredients, and stir to combine. Seal your pressure cooker and cook for 40 minutes.
  2. While waiting, make the salsa by combining all the ingredients in a bowl.
  3. Make the guacamole by combining all ingredients in a bowl.
  4. Allow the pressure cooker to cool – there will still be a lot of liquid in the pot. Remove the pork pieces and return the liquid to boil, until reduced to a thick glaze. If you’re getting impatient, you can thicken the sauce with 1 tbsp of cornflour in 2 tbsp water.
  5. Shred the pork and add to the glaze and stir. Keep warm until serving.

Mocan & Green Grout

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Restaurants, Reviews

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

mocan outside

It’s not easy to find good brunch places in Canberra. To be a truly decent brunch place, a cafe has to be worth getting out of bed for.

Mocan and Green Grout is one such place, although their serving staff could probably do with a bit less attitude. The menu has some solid staples with a twist – rose scented granola with rhubarb yoghurt, spicy baked beans with labneh and tripoli baked eggs with hummus, to name a few.

mocan collage

Set in a corner of an apartment building, the decor is vintage industrial and would have no trouble fitting in any Melbourne back alley or Sydney side street. French strawberry picking baskets are scattered in amongst the plants and the cafe even has it’s own little garden boasting tomatoes and a variety of other herbs. In their spare time, just because – they hand make bicycle frames. But be warned, they’ll set you back around the $1750 mark.

mocan naked man

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the naked man’s butt in the background, it’s a sculpture by award-winning artist Tim Kyle.

mocan kitchen

But perhaps the coolest thing about Mocan & Green Grout is that the kitchen is the centrepiece of the restaurant – a giant bench is set in the middle of the serving space and staff prepare meals surrounded by customers.

mocan coffee

It boasts a takeaway espresso bar too, and the coffee ain’t half bad. – N puts it on par with Hideout and Harvest. His short mac looked a perfect 30ml and was just stained with foam – just how it should be.

chorizo eggs

We ordered grilled chorizo, fried free range eggs, corn and avocado ($16). I must admit I was disappointed by the portion size – there was only half a chorizo, two dollops of avocado puree and a smattering of corn – but the eggs were well-cooked and perfectly oozy in the middle, and it’s worth noting that the chorizo wasn’t your average supermarket variety. It was a small serve and satisfying, but not quite filling. My friend who ordered it had to have a follow on second breakfast.

mocan beans

This was followed by spicy baked beans with labneh ($14) which was served on sourdough. The baked beans were well seasoned and had a good kick of spice, and were undoubtedly some of the best homemade baked beans I’ve had out.

mocan baked eggs

Lastly we had Tripoli baked eggs with hummus, spiced radish and yoghurt ($15). It’s a good twist on traditional baked eggs, and the eggs were lovely and oozy in the middle.

All things considered, Mocan & Green Grout is a cool new dining venue with a interesting menu of twists on brunch favourites.

The verdict
Is it good, or good for Canberra? It’s good, and you’d be happy with this in any major city. Prices are reasonable; all menu items were under $20 – with the trade off being that portions were a bit small for my liking. It’s definitely worth a visit if you’re up for contending with the sullen faces of staff who seem very inconvenienced by your choice of dining at their cafe. 

Mocan & Green Grout
19 Marcus Clarke Street, New Acton
+614 0652 5229

http://www.mocanandgreengrout.com/

Monday to Saturday 7am to 6pm, Sunday 8am to 4pm

Mocan & Green Grout on Urbanspoon

Old English Doughnuts with Cinnamon Sugar

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Comfort food, Dessert, Quick, Vegetarian

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , ,

cinnamon sugar doughnuts

When I can’t think of what to make for tea or dessert, this is my go to recipe – because there’s nothing more comforting than a warm, fluffy cinnamon sugar doughnut. You can tell my the spattered, stuck-together pages of this recipe that I’ve made it many, many times – it’s a no fail crowd pleaser.

You can fill them with jam or top them with chocolate, but I like the classics, so a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar is all I need.

Doughnuts with cinnamon sugar
serves 4
adapted from Gary Mehigan’s mini book, Comfort Food 

50g butter, roughly chopped
200ml milk
30g sugar
7g instant dried yeast
2 eggs
300g plain flour
pinch of salt

oil for deep frying

150g caster sugar
¾ tsp ground cinnamon

  1. Gently heat milk and butter in a small saucepan until just warmed through – too hot and you’ll kill the yeast.
  2. Pour into a bowl, then add sugar and yeast and stir until dissolved. Whisk the eggs into the warm milk mixture.
  3. Put the flour and salt into a large bowl, and make a well in the centre. Pour the egg/milk mixture in, and with a whisk, start mixing from the centre, drawing in the flour a bit at a time until a smooth batter forms.
  4. Cover the bowl with a damp tea towel and put in a warm spot to rise – about 30 minutes to an hour. If it’s the middle of Canberran winter and you can’t find a toasty spot, turn on the oven to 150C for a minute, then turn off and place the bowl inside.
  5. Make the cinnamon sugar by mixing the cinnamon and caster sugar in a zip lock bag, and shaking to combine.
  6. When you are ready to eat, heat your oil to around 180C – stick the end of a wooden spoon into the oil, and you’ll see bubbles coming from the wood.
  7. Transfer the dough to a piping bag fitted with a large round nozzle. Pipe tablespoon sized amounts of batter into the hot oil and cook until they are golden, making sure to turn them as needed.
  8. Lift the doughnuts out with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel for just 30 seconds – this is to make sure they’re not too hot and burn though the zip lock bag. Pop the warm donuts into the bag with the cinnamon sugar and shake to coat. Serve immediately while still warm.
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 39 other followers